ORPH

Orph is an excellent debut from dredg. By the material present here it doesn't take a genius to see why they were given a contract for a full length album. Musically this most resembles Leitmotif, strangely having better production than that album. Orph carries the same heavy Tool, and tribal (in the drumming) influence as their first album would. The riffing here is downright aggressive almost in the vein of extreme progressive metal, and Dino shows what a great talent he could have been in the prog-metal scene with his powerful and ever busy drum work, taking the occasional time out for bells or various other percussion. Gavin growls much more than he would on Leitmotif, with his growling being almost equally present as is his clean voice, but he does so much more successfully here. His voice fits nicely instead of sounding strained and empty as it would on Leitmotif.

Even early on dredg show their knack for atmospheric music taking a melodic break with the beautiful interlude to the madness, "Orph". Even in the midst of their aggressive prog-metal they find the time to produce a strong melody when the raw power seems to be becoming too much. In "Is Not Everything" the band doesn't stay still for a moment especially Gavin who really does a fantastic job singing in odd time here. They remind me of a complex, talented, heavier System Of A Down here, emphasis on the talented. "Kayasuma" is the heaviest thing they've recorded circa 2006, and will probably be remain the most brutal in the dredg catalogue.

Great Ep even if a bit short lasting under 20 mins. Not really representative of dredg's sound but this short EP marks the best collection of material dredg has.